Fighter-Size Phantom Ray UAV Flies Into Your Nightmares

This fighter-size UAV is called the Phantom Ray and may have played a part in the recent events in Pakistan. Designed around the Boeing X-45, this UAV recently flew to 7,500 feet at 204 mph and has been spotted making flights in Afghanistan as well as test flights at Edwards AFB.

“The first flight moves us farther into the next phase of unmanned aircraft,” said Craig Brown, Phantom Ray program manager for Boeing. “Autonomous, fighter-sized unmanned aircraft are real, and the UAS bar has been raised. Now I’m eager to see how high that bar will go.”

Considering the power of our current drone air force, this one can only mean we are one step closer to a Skynet-like autonomous defense system.

via DefenseTech

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Fighter-Size Phantom Ray UAV Flies Into Your Nightmares

Laser steering system uses liquid crystal to destroy the enemy on the cheap (video)

It might look like a poor man’s game of Pong now, but a new laser steering system coming out of North Carolina State University could make blowing things up Star Wars-style cheaper and more efficient. The setup enlists a series of “polarization gratings” through which a laser beam passes. Each of these gratings, made of liquid crystal applied to a plate of glass, are configured to redirect the light in a particular direction, thus simply steering the laser beam without significantly decreasing its power — with each grating comes a new “steerable” angle. The system’s creators point out its not only hyper accurate, but also less expensive than existing arrangements due to the use of liquid crystal. Apparently the US Air Force is already using the stuff, but don’t expect them to go all Death Star anytime soon.

Continue reading Laser steering system uses liquid crystal to destroy the enemy on the cheap (video)

Laser steering system uses liquid crystal to destroy the enemy on the cheap (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 06:49:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Australia trialing new emergency finder system with centimeter accuracy

This year has seen the evil doings of many powerful natural disasters around the world, and while the capable organisations are doing their best to provide relief, many lives could’ve been saved if the stranded victims were able to provide their precise positions for quicker rescue. Having seen the number of recent floods and cyclones in Queensland, Australia, Ergon Energy started trialing a new emergency tracking system earlier this year, which utilises pole-mounted mobile GPS stations to pinpoint cellphones equipped with special but cheap location-based chips — Samsung and Nokia are said to be participants in this project. Over the next 12 to 18 months, said energy firm will be deploying 1,000 of these stations to cover 95 percent of the state, in order to let emergency services track down calling victims within centimeters — that’s a huge leap from conventional GPS devices’ 10 to 20 meters, though an updated land database with matching accuracy is still required before the system reaches its full potential. Regardless, here’s hoping that this brilliant project will be brought over to many more disaster-prone areas sooner rather than later.

[Thanks, Justin]

Australia trialing new emergency finder system with centimeter accuracy originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 03 May 2011 09:27:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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NHK Breaks 8K Transmission Record, Hopes To Be Ready By 2020


Future display standards, hoooo! Japanese broadcaster NHK has collaborated with telecom NTT to do a little proof-of-concept transmission of some “Super High-Vision” video, or 7680×4320 pixels, the probable broadcast version of the enormous 8K resolution of RED yore. They managed to transmit it all the way around the world with a delay (due to inefficiencies in the system, lost packets, etc) of only 0.3s — far less than the 1.2s of earlier tests.

Don’t worry about upgrading your TV, though. They’re not hoping to roll out SHV broadcasting until around 2020.

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NHK Breaks 8K Transmission Record, Hopes To Be Ready By 2020

NOUS System Allows Disabled Users To Perform Simple Tasks… With Their Brains!

So this is what those zombies need our brains for: to turn on the lights! This prototype system allows the severely disabled to perform simple tasks like making a phone call and turn on the lights simply by thinking about commands. This is a proof of concept and uses the Emotiv EPOC headset to control a set of telekinetic applications that can perform various tasks.

Why is this better than, say, a suck-blow straw interface or an eye-tracking system? Well, for one it’s much cheaper than any of those well-established technologies and most of the processing is performed on the computer, thereby making the actual electronics a bit less complex.

There is a much longer and deeper interview over at Singularity Hub but this project seems to be progressing impressively and could soon give the severely disabled a second chance at controlling their physical environment.

Product Page via SingularityHub

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NOUS System Allows Disabled Users To Perform Simple Tasks… With Their Brains!